UK court freezes £6m of Craig Wright’s assets amid Bitcoin creator’s lawsuit
A UK court has ordered a £6 million ($7.6 million) freeze on the estate of Craig Wright to prevent him from having to pay court costs related to the alleged creator of the Bitcoin (BTC) network, Satoshi Nakamoto.
The decision comes after Wright moved some of his assets out of the UK after a court ruling rejected his claim to be Nakamoto. According to a UK court document, this prompted the London-based firm to transfer RCJBR Holdings' shares to the Singaporean entity on March 18. Judge James Mellor wrote in the document.
“Indeed, that raised concerns that COPA was taking steps to avoid the losses and consequences that Dr. Wright faced at trial.
Judge upholds ‘global freezing order' The Crypto Open Patent Alliance's (COPA) request to address COPA's total court costs of £8,471,225 (£6,703,747.91) has been upheld.
COPA was founded in 2020 to “encourage the adoption and development of cryptocurrency technologies and remove proprietary rights as barriers to growth and innovation.” Its 33 members include Coinbase, Block, Meta, MicroStrategy, Kraken, Paradigm, Uniswap and Worldcoin.
Australian computer scientist Wright has claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto in order to submit copyright claims regarding the Bitcoin network. For example, in January 2021, two websites called for the removal of the Bitcoin white paper.
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In April 2021, COPA filed a lawsuit against Wright, alleging that he was Satoshi Nakamoto and owned the copyright to Bitcoin. Following testimony from early Bitcoin developers such as Marty Malmi, the judge concluded on March 14 of this year that the evidence pointed to Wright not being Nakamoto.
In the year In 2023, Wright sued 13 Bitcoin Core developers and a group of companies including Blockstream, Coinbase and Block for copyright infringements related to the Bitcoin white paper, its file format and database rights.
The Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund responded to the lawsuit, pointing out the trend of violent lawsuits against prominent Bitcoin contributors, blocking development due to the associated time, stress, costs and legal risks. Wright filed a US copyright registration for the Bitcoin white paper and its code in 2019.
The Bitcoin white paper is now subject to the MIT Open Source License, which allows anyone to reuse and modify it for any purpose. A court order bars Wright from further copyright claims.
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